formidable jaws gaping wide - who will clean these teeth? lambswool clotted with blood, crown and throne up-ended and shattered. a blizzard of flaming stones, a sea of ground glass. take a step. take a breath. the eyes are open. the ears are listening. what subtle words of destruction and awesome commandments of revelation await? turn away the curve of the earth. peel away the sun. behind the underneath of everything it is slumbering now. it is dreaming then. now: AWAKEN

On NPR this morning, at the end of a story concerning separation of powers and the ongoing "war on terrorism," the reporter stated that the government was having trouble figuring out the roles of its various branches in a war, "with no identifiable enemy and no foreseeable end." Of course, if this is a clear statement of the case, as I believe it to be, then we have entered a realm (in point of fact, entered it quite a while ago) in which war is a state of affairs, rather than an activity undertaken for a particular end. If there is "no identifiable enemy," how can there be a war at all? If the war has no end, what differentiates it from its opposite?
The American Empire has no identifiable other, no counter-empire, against which is opposes itself. Instead, it only has threats to its structural integrity. "Terrorism" is the word currently used to describe a class of threats, and is, as such, the enemy itself. "Crime" is another word to describe a class of threats. It is related to the class of threats which fall under the term "Drugs," though the latter is ambiguous since, in the case of an anthrax vaccine, "drugs" may actually refer to a class of preventative agents or events.
The system cannot proceed against a class, since it is the system alone which defines it as a class. However, the system can proceed against members of a class. The challenge thus becomes clearly defining the members of the class. The recent debate concerning whether or not we should, unilaterally or not, intervene against the regime of Saddam Hussein is related to the complex described above. If Saddam Hussein can be effectively defined as belonging to the class "Terrorism," then the system can proceed against him. As we have seen, this has not been as easy as one might presume. The international community is not in agreement concerning his classification, and similar doubts have been raised domestically. While there does seem to be a consensus that Hussein, in his attacks on the Kurds, for example, has committed crimes against humanity, the problem with assigning him to the "Crimes" class is that the function of this class is to define internal threats to system stability. Neither the Kurds nor Saddam Hussein nor the gassing of Kurdish civilians can be situated inside the system. As horrible or atrocious as they may be, they belong to the outside of law.
But there may be another problem, deeper than one associated with evidence. The class "terrorist" itself may need further specification, particularly as the justice department begins the process of constructing an internal surveillance network in the US (very 19th century). Prior to an actual terrorist act, and apart from specific plans to carry it out, what observable actions define a member of this class? When will "sympathy" become such an attribute? When will legitimate critique of governmental policies and actions become such an attribute? When will defending yourself against a false accusation become an attribute? When will (did) your name appear on a list?
This set-up, the "war on terrorism," breeds such paranoid musings and is itself a product of them. The bigger question thus becomes, how do we define "threat to systemic stability"? What "system" is the government trying to maintain, what "system" does is thereby create, and, as a result, what other "system" is either destabilized or prophylactically made impossible?

In "Sein und Zeit," Heidegger described "Sein zum Tod," or "Being unto Death," as the authentic existential posture for any "Being there" (what you and I would probably call a "being"). As I recall it through the haze of my post-graduate years, Heidegger was advocating a quasi-buddhistic "keep your eye on your death" approach to living. You will die. You are going to die. Your death is yours alone. It is inevitable, out there, waiting. "Death comes ripping," as Glen Danzig reminded us many moons past. By choosing your own personal and ultimate death as a closing bracket for your life, the latter is illuminated by the proper light of actuality.
The subtext here is that the one thing every human has in common, is this lowering fate. The odd thing to me was the abstractness of it. Certainly, we all die. But some will die before I finish typing this sentence (may you now rest in peace), some will die wasting away in a hospital bed, some will did obliviously as they drunkenly drive their cars over embankments, some will die suddenly of heart attacks on commuter trains, some will die of diseases that were preventable, etc. In fact, unless you commit suicide, the fact of your death remains shrouded in potentiality.
On the other hand, and I think I'm ripping this idea off of Heidegger's old flame, Hannah Arendt, it is a demonstrable fact that everyone living was born and the precise moment and circumstances of that birth are very specifically situated in time. By focusing on this birthedness of us, rather than our eventual mortality, we choose a perspective that gives greater wait to our deep connection to other humans (moms in particular). It anchors our way of living in a (past) certainty rather than a (certain) future possibility. The one event is concrete (I appeared covered with blood and amniotic fluid from my mother's vagina), the other conjectural (I will leave this world in some as yet to be defined way). The one creates a perspective in which our specific origin and subsequent experiences are acknowledged as the necessary foundation for our life as it is, the other creates a perspective in which an idea (that of our death) becomes the basis of our life and actions, thereby facilitating all forms of actionistic fanaticism (either of a heroic or diabolical nature).
All religions focus on death - how to prepare for it and how to overcome it. They leave birth alone because it has already happened (though, of course, some religions focus on death as a way of preparing for a better next birth - nevertheless, even in these cases, birth is mediated by death). When we reverse our perspective and consider birth as the primary, organizing event in our lives, we turn our backs on the so-called spiritual, the beyond, etc., and ground ourselves in the real situation of living here in this world in this way right now. Our death is not the doorway to the beyond, but the beyond itself. There is nothing (literally) on the other side.

Thomas Friedman wrote an editorial in the Times today (if you, whoever you may be, are reading this more than 2 weeks in the future of this posting, you may no longer have access to the above) in which he stressed "context matters." He was talking about democracy in India and how it has prevented the growth of Islamic militancy by providing Muslims (150 million minority population in Indai) real opportunities for social movement and self-actualization. He also stressed, as I have done, that America and the world would be better served by a campaign to promote democracy, rather than a campaign to end terrorism. If you did the one, I believe, the other would follow (and there are real historical examples of this occuring). But that was not what intrigued me. A few days ago, I was writing up a preliminary ethics in which I wrote "Know your context." Which was my way of saying "Context matters," while putting the emphasis on the subjective relationship to context, rather than the latter's objective significance. This is a basic relativist tenet (and critical to the emerging philosophy which calls itself "transversal") and, indeed, relativism provides the context for the contextualization of context. Tis true that context matters, but what, precisely, is the context for any particular thought or event? That is: democracy is the context for Indian Muslims.The European Enlightenment and Ghandi are the context for Indian democracy. The rise of humanism and capitalism in Europe (along with the collapse of Euro-feudalism) provide the context for the Enlightenment (and, by extension, the French revolution). The dark ages are the context for the rise of euro-feudalism. Fall of Rome (and rise of Gothic tribes) context for that. Decline of Alexandrian world context for rise of Rome, etc. etc. Of course, these are merely historical contexts. I could have chosen climactic changes, species migration, technological advances, spiritual innovations, etc. And, of course, the what is the context of the earth itself? of the Milky Way? The history of the universe? Remember: context matters, meaning precisely, what you view as the object of interest and what you choose as its context.

Limits, borders, boundaries, barriers. Strange how few actual, physical limits there are. Most borders, for example, are conventional or merely legally defined. Where does Mexico end and Texas begin? Does the Earth know and respect these relations? Of course not. What if you could arrest clouds or wind for crossing state lines? Which leaves us with the "other" boundaries, those imposed by our thought-patterns or by specific social groups. To be a Kurd in Turkey means something (it may mean that you will be put in prison and executed, if you are politically inclined, or want to teach children to read Kurdish). To be a Kurd in the US doesn't mean anything. The line that distinguishes between Kurd and Turk does not exist here, indeed, it does not exist anywhere, although it is enacted by Turkish soldiers and citizenry.
Such lines can be condensed under the rubric of difference. A difference does not exist in, but in between. The difference is the boundary, the borderline, that only appears through the window of relation. The relation creates the difference and can likewise uncreate it (through rearrangement of the related). This begs the question: Is there ever a "real" difference? Of course, all differences are real. But difference itself faces its own threshold, that dividing sense from the senseless. There is a difference between Turks and Kurds here in the US (differences of language, history, memory, desire, fury, etc.). It is just that, in this context, the difference is senseless.

struggling with the concept of "space-time." everything is a four dimensional object occupying four dimensional spacetime. I realize that the math works, but there seems to be something amiss on the conceptual level. even in the string world, they talk of "x spatial dimensions, and 1 temporal dimension." isn't this formulation itself an acknowledgement, that at least in one regard, time is different from space? indeed, the notion of "spacetime" itself, embeds this difference in its awkward compoundity. heidegger (that wily ol' nazzy), faulted contemporary physics for its "spatialization of time," since this invovled an attempt to make time, the Insubstantial, substantial. Looking at an old Wired magazine (circa '98) the other day, I came across the same tendency in the quote: "Today, time is the only truly scarce commodity." It's a strange sort of commodity since, you can't increase or decrease it quantitatively. You can't stockpile or hoard it. Time simply and inexorably elapses. (Funny to think of "elapsing" as something one thing does to another: "I will elapse you." The triumph of the intransitive.) We spatialize time as a matter of course when we say things (do we "say things"?) like, "This is taking place IN real-time," or "at that point IN time." Spacetime can consist of points (located in some sort of four dimensional grid), time cannot. Our brains, or at least my own, seem incapable of modeling such a structure, though I seem to have no trouble existing as such. We believe that, since there are other places in space, there must be other places in time. is time not the "place" that all space occurs in (or the Space the Place occurs in)? Time resides in the occurrence itself (even if this occurrence takes the form of endurance). We tend to think of time as an abstract, uniformity in and through which the events of the universe unfold. Time, however, is what these events (and ourselves as events), "bring to the table." We (and they by extension, or vice versa) are the fourth dimension.

Just a little tidbit: Command performance for a captive audience.

heard some kids talking in the cd store. costs about 1.50 to produce a cd. so, the logic of one kid, you're getting ripped off if you pay 7.99 for it. other kid said, yeah, but you're paying for the time it took to make it, etc. what are we paying for when we buy cds? how long will it be (2years/5 years) before the idea of buying cds will seem absurd (Why did we ever do that?) Why do I do it? Why did I just spend 50 bucks for 4 discs? In all cases, I was buying from indy labels, so I assume that the artist will get more than at the majors. But what's really going on? I wanted to spend some money and I did. As a friend of mine once put it, "My mother and sister went shopping together, because that's how they feel." She didn't mean, "they feel like shopping." She meant, "Their relationship to the world is mediated by purchasing clothing, etc." When she said that, probably more than 10 years ago, now, I did not identify with the mother and the sister. But today, I do. Depressed this week and so, in order to feel like I have some control over the universe and the ability to satisfy my needs (take care of myself - feel), I bought a bunch of cds. I'll be surprised if I listen to any of them 10 time before I die (though, frankly, its not out of the question - though listening to them 10x before next year is a little more questionable). I like to collect. I like to acquire. I makes me feel like I actually exist. I do not know what existence is. The future belongs to the irreplaceable and the singular. Like me.

and reminded yesterday in the presence of an androgynous funk sorceress of the power of music. this is materialist mysticism. no gods. no beyond. no elsewhere. music, generated and evaporated in the flux of time. that we can spend our time this way, dancing, playing. and every religion on earth a construct, a convention. "would you walk the path of righteousness if you knew that there was no heaven, no god, no eternal reward?" many would hesitate; many more would simply walk the path, realizing that that too is one way to live here on earth, to reenact the dramas of faith, the carnival of belief. not believing is possible as well. knowing is possible. not knowing, also. but a bunch of humans together under the spell of music, the energy focused and broadcast through one particularly active node, nodding, funking, precipitating the flow. we're in it too.

words are coins. we use them, though they don't belong to us, are not produced by us. nor do they end with us. a wider variety of riches. what we hammer from these divers metals. what we accept as is and pass along as was.

plagued, or nagged, today, by the hierarchy. the primate play of things. esteem rises and falls with the shifting perspectives of our inter-actors. negotiated against our self-esteem.

Beset lately by the solipsism of experience and the indifference of the natural world. The same sun shines down on the torturer and the tortured. As the latter jerks and spasms on the blood and urine bespattered floor of the torture chamber, the shocking sensations wracking his or her body remain hermetic, an inexchangeable (though not inexpressible) data point. Whether a child is raped and murdered or spends a joyous afternoon at the playground is of no matter to the air or the earth. Both eventualities are possible, inscribed in the open nature of Being. Likewise, a person can drive along the highway listening to music on a nice car stereo, stop for a drink with friends, and then proceed to relax in his modest home in a quiet suburb, while elsewhere on the globe, in the Sudan for example, unfortunates are pressed into slavery. From freedom to imprisonment, from birth to death, from love to hatred, such is the spectrum of this world. And yet, our thoughts and feelings, our celebration or condemnation of this state of affairs, are transient and private chemical states - a certain, momentary disposition of the substrate. The thought that everything we cherish, every ambition, every reaction, is reducible to itself, and devoid of any place in a more cosmic skein of meaning or purpose drives many to God, failing to consider the great absence in which even this great figure aimlessly drifts.

what wild thoughts cause men to weep, and ancient secrets crack open the hardened ground of oblivion? capitalists may have conscience, but capitalism has none. it is the universal solvent. ever traditional bond or primitive structure will bow and rupture neath its anarchic brunt. this is its beauty. shiva, the universal destroyer, made systemic. there is no law or code inscribed in its sinews of distribution and exchange.

william bennett's denunciation of relativism. how can any thinking person not be relativistic, or at least recognize the political value of relativism when it comes to discrediting opposing ideologies? Even Pat Robertson realized the deconstruction's privileging of the text, and post-modernism's celebration of pastiche offered the Christian Right an opening - it could actually justify/legitimate itself in terms of the theories that nominally opposed it.

what do I mean when I say, "I love America"? What do I love, precisely?

now this pledge of allegiance deal, even though it's a few days old. and the guy who brought the suit is getting death threats. on the one hand, who cares if your child hears "one nation, under god" two hundred times a year for 12 years? Do you really think that makes her think certain things like "there is a god up above us"? maybe she thinks it says, "one nation: Undergod". Maybe "under god" means the same as "underwear" to her? at the same time, is it right that people want to kill this man, or at least threaten him, just because he used the court system to legitimately challenge something that he found troublesome?

Do the people in congress have to behave the way they do? Are they autonomous or automata? i've said it before and I'll say it again, there is a strict limit set to how high an office one might obtain while proclaiming atheism.

Atheism is cosmic anarchy. anarchy is the enemy of stability. anarchy is true equilibrium (which is chaos). heat death equals disorganized uniformity. if there were any difference in states at that point, then their would exist the possibility of energy shifts and discharge, therefore, heat, but, when it's all one temperature, will there be anything at all? anything only exists due to movement and change, flux of energy decalibria. we too are states of energic fluidity.

think about how much energy is required to maintain this nation's hard won stability? how much energy will we expend to make it even more stable, to make this stability unshakeable? how much power will we concentrate in the hands of the few, so that they can focus it, our living lenses? laserlike, they will seek out and eliminate all sources of instability until there is nothing but stability, no movement - heat death, chaos. Anarchists! Atheists!

Justice Scalia said, in a recent speech that any judge who found the death penalty "immoral" should resign from the bench. His argument was that, if someone disagrees with the law, they should work politically to change it. Judges, however, must make sure that the law is implemented correctly. If a judge believes the death penalty is immoral, he or she may refrain from imposing if, even when statues clear dictate its imposition. There are several assumptions that underly is recommendation that bear examination. First, can someone do something even if they find it immoral? Of course. Second, are justices always unbiased/impartial in their assessment of a case or the law? Of course not. Thirdly, must justices be impartial? I'm not sure. Fourthly, does interpretation of the constitution necessarily mean "uncovering the intent of the framers"? Of course not. Is it possible that the framers were not impartial in their framing? Of course. Etc.

i'm lost to the effortless. shorn, beleaguered, strident. top of the morning to you. the sheer power of honest description beats the ornate finery of rarefied reflection. or does it? the infinite leap from scientific or even philosophical insight into ontology's most undenial truth or metaphysic's most unshakeable foundation and the experience of living for one minute in this body on this earth at this point in history. the world may be computational, the result of a few, or even one, simple rule, repeated on a basic material for untold aeons, but I've still got to make out a will and do the laundry (to give to examples of life mundane-style). it'll be interesting to see how Wolfram tackles the "why is there something instead of nothing" - its one thing to talk about the rules and how they produce infinite complexity, and another to say why there is anything to apply rules to in the first place. bring it, dude!

more paranoia: It is reported that, "An early draft of the White House's National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace envisions the same kind of mandatory customer data collection and retention by U.S. Internet service providers as was recently enacted in Europe, according to sources who have reviewed portions of the plan." The data collection in Europe includes "from, to, cc and subject lines" from all e-mail and a complete browsing history of each user. The fact that everything you do in "cyberspace" must pass through controlled systems that can record and archive any information (including your clicking paths) that you send through them should encourage us all to reconsider the merits of the offline world.

plastered to the thick of it. daring to blush in anguish. several more instances of that and we will have an entire catalog. just think, us, we, the morning after the apocalypse, which everyone thinks means death and dying destruction, but, of course, the word simply means "revelation." what do we fear to confront revealed before us? the veil rendered, the bandaid removed with a quick, skin-shredding yank? as if this situation were not "real" and, when facing the brunt of the real real, we will evaporate, obliterated by this uncompromising, uncompromised force. who told us the world is not real and we have to wait and see the real thing later, after death, when the universal death leaps up onto the stage and everything be laid terrible waste? who makes brains think this way? why can't we directly perceive the small unit of space, the shortest duration of time? do we? not?

we associate savagery with speed - the speed of a predator rushing in for the kill. what god love or is speed?

the gaia hypothesis states that the earth is a living organism, and all components - atmosphere, biosphere - are similar like to organs or limbs in this one body organism. we then talk of cancer and disease in this bodyplace. are we parasites? or useful like the bacteria in our bellies? also, what if the earth is a predator? perhaps the earth grows us for some use or purpose. we are food.

"They get tons and tons of information," this lawmaker said. "I don't think people realize how much information our government collects." this just on cnn. do people not realize, or do they have to actively repress this fact, that most electronic communication, and certainly all cell-phone communication is recorded by the national security agency? in fact, when you think about it, getting people to use the web, the internet, etc. basically gets an unprecedented number of people to use a relatively closed system for communication. we are the fish in a barrel.

after writing that "'out' is the new 'in'" bit the other day (6/18/02) i was reading a review of music done by vincent gallo and the reviewer wrote, "'anal' is the new 'oral.'" every head appears to be one nub or nodule in the big meta-brain and a thought that pounces through your mind is part of a chain of thought running across the sprocket-teeth of all-minds. proof is the new pudding.